


Even In Your Deepest Hour (You Got It All Figured Out)

by VolxdoSioda



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Friendships, Ficlet, Gen, Unexpected friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Their first meeting is sheer chaos. Geralt almost winds up skewered. Noctis nearly loses his head.Somehow, they make it work.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 6
Kudos: 138





	Even In Your Deepest Hour (You Got It All Figured Out)

**Author's Note:**

> I have read 1 book, and am gradually working my way through more. But I wanted to toss these two together and see how they would play.

Open fields of glowing, golden wheat spread out as far as the eye can see. Even standing up in the stirrups doesn’t help much. “Where are we?”

Geralt makes a soft noise. “I was under the impression _you _would know the answer to that.”

“Uh, city boy, remember? Never been beyond the Wall? Not allowed to stick my head out of the car during rides for fear of assassins popping it like a grape? Ringing any bells, Geralt?”

“Perhaps.” He nudges Roach forward, and Noctis falls back into the saddle again. Focuses instead on taking in the scenery around them, even those most of it he’s seen before on their long travel together. Trees and rocks and crops, planted by human hands rather than chocobos and machines. That points to this area being from Geralt’s world, rather than his own.

He wonders what his younger self would think, if he could see himself now. Especially having grown up with the belief that the _chocobo _rides were the slowest method of travel. It’s nothing compared to the easygoing, sure steps of Roach, and the easier, calmer steps of her rider. Geralt startles for nothing, appears to take everything he witnesses and experiences with the demeanor of a man who has seen it all. Maybe it’s part of the witcher nature, or maybe it’s just Geralt. In either case, its hard to get worked up about much when all it earns from Geralt is a raised brow or a soft _hmm _of acknowledgement.

The most he’s ever gotten is an equally soft _fuck, _usually aimed at the universe in general. Noctis himself has certainly had those days, so he’s got no room to judge. Not that he would, even if he could.

“You’re being loud.”

“…sorry for _breathing, _I guess?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Out there somewhere, Dandelion has an urge to challenge someone to a debate, and he won’t even know why.”

“This again?”

“If you would stop thinking so loudly—”

“I’m not—”

Roach draws to a gentle stop as Geralt tugs on the reins. Noctis sighs and turns around in the saddle, meeting yellow eyes. “I’m not worrying, or fussing. I’m just _thinking. _Is that such a crime?”

“With you, it’s more a warning. You think about things that you should let rest already.”

“I’m _thinking _about what my younger self would say to me sitting saddle-pretty in the lap of a man over six times my age and capable of ripping holes through stone with a word.”

Geralt’s lips twitch. “Careful, I think that’s fondness I’m detecting in your voice, princeling.”

“Ifrit take you, you know it is,” Noctis mutters, turning back around, aware the back of his neck and the tips of his ears have likely gone pink. “One day, I’m going to get you on a chocobo, mark my words.”

“If you do, it will be only because I am so stone-blasted drunk that I have lost every ounce of my sense, both common and witcherly.”

“It’s like riding Roach, for Six’s sake! Just… fluffier. A lot fluffier. And they walk a little different. But it’s the same approach! There’s a saddle, bit, reins—”

“A tendency to spook in violent fights, or loud noises, bolt during storms, around certain people—”

“Roach doesn’t do those things, and some chocobos don’t either. You make me sound like I’d throw you up on the flightiest one I could find. What if I gave you Nightmare? Would that make you feel better?”

Geralt raises a brow.

“The name isn’t— it’s a pun, okay? Mare of the night. _Night mare.”_

“And yet she is a bird.”

“She’s a good bird! Better than your Roach.”

Roach snorts, as if amused. Geralt’s lips twist again, this time the grin coming out lopsided, easy, like a wolf whose had a good meal and is watching the pups play. “I doubt that very much. But go on about your hen-bird, princeling.”

“Pox on you. See if I catch you dinner the next time we stop at a stream.”

“Indeed? Well then, enjoy catching your own deer for that jerky you enjoy.”

As if to further argue that yes, they enjoy the jerky very much, Noctis’ stomach rumbles audibly. His shoulders hunch, and he doesn’t need to turn around to know Geralt is _smug _as only a man who has won an arguement can be.

“Not. One. Word.”

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Their first meeting is pure chance, and it is sheer chaos.

Fresh off the back of a fight with a kirin of all things, Geralt spooks badly when Noctis, previously fighting a Behemoth, tumbles through a gap in space, and nearly lands on him. For his troubles, Noctis nearly winds up beheaded, while Geralt nearly gets speared on the weapons of ancient kings.

Eventually, they both settle, aware that they are not where they should be. Their magics help there; clashing and tangling, trying to find cracks in each other’s armor, and finding nothing, tangling together until it is a mess. Noctis doesn’t speak Common, and Geralt can’t speak Lucian. But by the end of the first meeting, they have an understanding.

Noctis is lost, and alone. Geralt is less lost, but also alone. They are both magic users, both hunters, both powerful in their own ways.

And so Geralt lets Noctis linger around the campfire, and when he stirs in the morning the boy is gone, nothing but the holes in his clothing to tell him it was more than just a dream.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“_Six. Take. You!”_

Geralt can’t understand what Noctis just said, but he knows the tone well enough. This fish, whatever he’s managed to catch, is not going down easily. Noctis is not amused. But he’s also not about to give up. He’s only armed with a pole, and his baits are strange to Geralt’s eyes, but nontheless he’s attracted their dinner. Assuming he can land it.

(Geralt doesn’t doubt he can. He will.)

“Geralt!” Noctis barks, and Geralt approaches the edge of the banks, drawing his knife without being asked. A bead of sweat rolls down Noctis’ brow, white teeth flashing as he clenches them tight. He lets the line go lax, and then abruptly _pulls, _and—

There is dinner, flopping helplessly on the shore. Enough for three, four easily. Or between the two of them, dinner and breakfast.

Noctis lets out a whoop of glee, and Geralt hooks fingers into the gill slits, pulling the hook out and taking the fish towards the fire to be cleaned, gutted and served. He’s eaten more fish since Noctis’s arrival, but it’s been balanced these past few weeks by an abundance of berries and fowl. There have been precious few sightings of deer, which means none of the hearty stew they both enjoy, but the last town has more than made up for it.

“How long do you think you’ll be this time?” Geralt asks, as the fish cooks. Noctis has tucked his fishing pole and supplies back into that void-space Geralt can feel carved inside him like his own magic; a flash of blue sparks, and then nothing.

Noctis shrugs a shoulder. Neither of them truly understand the rules of their meeting, or their continued crossing of paths. Sometimes Geralt rides and takes a path that wasn’t there yesterday, and winds up in a world he’s never seen, and sometimes Noctis takes a turn down a corridor that didn’t exist before that moment and winds up in an older time. But they are connected always, happening upon each other again and again. As if Fate means for them to learn something from each other by the repeated encounters. And so all Noctis can do is guess when he’ll chance upon the route that will take him back.

Sometimes it’s a feeling, and other times a direct statement. A couple of times, Geralt has ridden them through his world, into Noctis’ own, and then kept going until the paths split again, and let Noctis off before returning to his own.

Dandelion refuses to believe Noctis is real, and unfortunately Noctis is never around when Dandelion is to prove otherwise.

“Maybe tomorrow?” Noctis offers, peering up at the starry sky. “Soon. I know that. But not tonight, and not tomorrow morning either. Tea?”

“No, thank you.” He watches as Noctis pulls a stone cup out of his space, roughly carved using a technique Geralt showed him some weeks ago, fills it with water from a skin also pulled out of the void-space, and sets it by the fire to heat. The leaves he pulls out - always pre-bagged - smell heavily of mint. “Upset stomach?”

Noctis shrugs again. “Might be trying to come down with something.”

Geralt turns the fish. Unlikely, he thinks, but doesn’t say. Noctis takes care of himself too well to fall sick - and they haven’t been riding in hard conditions, or been near anyone ill. But then, there are some things that Noctis doesn’t mention, or bring up, like the little pills he takes every so often, roughly the size of Geralt’s thumbnail.

They both have their secrets. So Geralt won’t pry unless invited. “Let me know if you need more leaves,” he says instead, and Noctis nods, and they both fall silent as they wait for dinner to finish.

Yet Geralt resolves that perhaps he’ll stop in the next town available, and see a healer about a potion or two, when halfway through dinner Noctis hastily excuses himself and ducks away. Geralt hears the unmistakable sound of retching.

And even later still, he watches silently as Noctis curls closer than normal to the fire, and still shivers. His brow is furrowed in sleep, and he murmurs words Geralt can’t understand, but whose tone belies them as pleas.

Yes, he thinks. Perhaps a coin or two spent on a potion would be worthwhile.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“Welcome to Eos.”

Roach slows, and then draws to a stop. They’ve come out near the Slough this time, right on the cusp at dawn. Right at the perfect time for the Catoblepas to come down for their morning bath and breakfast routine. It’s a moment Noctis remembers witnessing ages ago, and being left speechless in the wake of.

Geralt isn’t quite so starry-eyed, but there’s no mistaking he’s impressed by the sheer _size _alone. “Are they passive, these beasts?”

“Unless you get too close. And by too close, I mean if you get up next to their legs. Or next to their food.” He gestures towards the lake. “So uh, if you wanna take a swim? Consider elsewhere.”

“Noted.” He looks around then, taking in the sights around him. “You know this area?”

“Alaster Slough, in Duscae. We’re not too far away from Insomnia. Could probably get there in a day or two, if we wanted.”

Geralt hums, but says nothing. There are boundaries, Noctis knows. Lines drawn in the sand, perfect and neat. The arrangement between them might not be something they can reject so easily, but they still take care to give each other space. Even if Noctis thinks Geralt might _like _Insomnia, or at least the people in it. Perhaps the Glaives. Maybe his dad.

But he knows that people might react _badly _to Geralt. It’s one thing in his own world. But here? Noctis doesn’t want the man scorned in two worlds. It’s probably for the best, he tries to rationalize with himself. There’s no reason to get attached to a man whose just his traveling partner, and an unwilling one at that.

“Your city. How big is it?”

Noctis snaps his gaze up. Geralt is still looking out at the Catoblepas, watching them dig through the waters to graze. His throat feels dry, and he has to clear it twice before he can answer. “Ah, it’s the capital of Lucis, so. Pretty big? Maybe… five, six of your villages put together?” It’s hard to get a mental picture, given he doesn’t know how big the biggest of those villages usually _are. _

“So everyone doesn’t know everyone.”

“Oh god no.” He tries to imagine it, and laughs. “Maybe certain neighborhoods know each other - I know Nyx has mentioned more than once that the Galahdians all know each other, and the Glaives, and the Crownsguard recruits—”

“And the King? Does he know all of his people? Who resides in his lands, what they want, why they are there?” He finally looks at Noctis. Noctis swallows. “Does he know his son?”

_Ah. Fuck. _

It’s an old wound. A silly one. He should have gotten over it as as child, and yet—

“He knows his people. His kingdom, yes,” Noctis speaks much quieter than previous. “And he knows his heir. He knows the Prince.”

Old memories of long nights spent in the hallways. Of evenings spent waiting for his dad to crest a hill to play ball with him. Of dinners spent wanting to ask him for some time together, but never being brave enough as Clarus went on and on about future duties, and his dad nodded and agreed to meetings on top of more meetings.

Geralt says nothing. He doesn’t need to, and after a moment Roach moves on, past the Catoblepas, out further into the fields, away from Insomnia.

Away from the world Geralt, and on some level Noctis, do not belong to.


End file.
